Capital Campaign

In the North Bay, there is a widening gap between children growing up in strong, economically secure families—within thriving communities—and children who are not.

Yet right here in one of the most abundant places we call home:

• 35% of Marin County 3- and 4-year old children and roughly half of the 11,000 Sonoma County children under the age of 5 do not attend preschool, often due to the high costs for families.
• 65% of Marin’s disadvantaged children do not read at grade level.
• 64% of Sonoma County’s kids start kindergarten unprepared.
• In Sonoma County, more than 2,000 children are on long waiting lists for subsidized early education.
• In Marin County, as many as 800 families are currently on a wait list and unable to secure affordable child care.

Even more troubling, there are simply not enough facilities or trained teachers to meet the rapidly growing needs in both counties.

Now NBCC has launched The Bright Futures Campaign to rebuild the C Street Campus and expand program sites throughout Sonoma County, thereby increasing the number of students preparing for academic success by 37% in Novato and 23% in Sonoma County.

The Bright Futures campaign will strengthen our early education workforce by creating a North Bay Learning Lab for training teachers, parents and school administrators in the ingredients of NBCC’s successful formula. These highly trained teachers will be able to integrate NBCC’s core competencies’ such as “Raising a Reader” and Garden of Eatin’® nutrition education into their daily lessons. The Lab will also provide needed space for NBCC to further fine tune and enhance these key determinants of student success.

With an expanded, solid infrastructure to fully support more sites throughout Marin and Sonoma Counties, NBCC will increase the number of North Bay children with access to preschool and the path to economic and academic success. And each dollar invested in the Bright Futures campaign will decrease the inevitable costs to society if these children fail to prepare for the work force and are unable to earn a living wage.